​The last winter is still wrappedin a sodden quilt, a few morningspainted on the wall smell of tiger lilies;the window is still shaking, with my suicide note.

No it’s not musty air greeting you,my breaths still embrace the dust.With ink I had extinguished the stars;the candle light will cut a squarein the window.

The glazier fixes the glass panethrough which sluiced my voiceperhaps swinging on a cobweb;I had shouted for Gaza, Kashmir;the rectangle of the bed isa slogan, too.

In the cupboard it’s still raining,nothing can wash away my scent.a drop of it fell on the mosaic floorthat the landlady has rented you;its value Rs 000000000000000.00?

The Charpoy My Grandma Left

There she is again in shadowsOf white cotton sari, sittingsmiling on the charpoy shechose from her father’s houseas a 13-year-old bride when redwas the only colour she knew.

Then she saw her house near the borderOf Pakistan: a white square fading inOrange dusk. All that was left in her eyesWas print of barbed wires and prayers on her lipsWith the rosary moving in her fingerslike the planets. The charpoy creakedunder the weight of violence her face sighed witheach rope in its criss-cross knew a tale:

the lemon pickles drying in the sunbobbled like the chopped stories sheheard from Baluchi nomads that soldsunlight in glass jars. Later the sunwas exiled in hollow eyes. A beamwas worth millions of lives;

faces grew like jungles, stuck inmy grandma’s braids then black.She saw flags like hawks hoveringagainst the blue of her eyes. A stripof sky remained in her iris. She tookthat and folded under her pillow.

Summer moon often peeps at thesilent charpoy that she left for us.Its ropes DNA of many anecdotes;My hands touch its woodenlegs – old history shiftsIn another mapMy grandma took with her.

My Father's Last Prayer

Murmur of verseson summer-soakedlips of old women;their cotton dressessieve the milk of stars.

I look for my father’s prayersonly to find his skull capin the shadows of a new moon.

She hasn’t yet reached the field where she can find herself. Calcutta is where she grew up, smelling shiuli flowers and chewing syllables. Her poems have been featured in Contemporary Literary Review India, Open Road Review, Brown Boat, Coldnoon Travel Poetics, The Asian Age, The Telegraph, etc.